Hmmm. For a more character based fantasy series I can't say the characters in the first volume resonated with me or caught my interest. The shaping of the Griffins as a magical species has potential, which we'll have to see if it unfold more over time.The larger more epic conflicts of the novel...
Like a tomb. That was what oubliettes were supposed to be, after all: tombs for the living instead of the dead. Trei had always known that desperate criminals, the sort that were never going to be released, were sometimes imprisoned in deep oubliettes; he had known that most towns had oubliettes ...
She was relieved to know they would soon be safe in Sihannas. But she’d never for an instant intended to leave the town herself. She didn’t understand why anyone had supposed she would flee. Even if she wanted to—and she was willing to admit to herself that maybe she did—she couldn’t. How could s...
He didn’t understand it, but he didn’t wait for the Dimilioc wolves to close with the black dogs of the shadow pack, either. He hurled himself straight at Vonhausel, who in his arrogance was still in his vulnerable human form. But Vonhausel only gave way before his first raking blow, and though A...
Alejandro said. He spoke softly, with a deferential glance down, because even months after joining Dimilioc, he still felt small and weak and vulnerable when in Ezekiel Korte’s company. The only thing that made this tolerable was that he knew every other black dog except Grayson Lanning himself f...
The king gave Bertaud one assessing, incredulous stare and rose from his couch. Eles, behind him, cocked his head to one side and looked warily interested. Bertaud waited as the king murmured a word of apology to his little queen. He whispered something to her that made her blush and giggle, and ...
Her name was Melanie Manteufel. She was pretty, if not beautiful. She had a broad forehead and wide-set gray eyes, a slightly snub nose and a generous mouth. She was also the sort of girl who lit up with genuine pleasure when she met a friend or a stranger, which gave her a different and rarer ki...
Magister Eroniel came a step forward, his cold gaze taking in the scene, and exclaimed, “Fools! What have you done? The King cannot have missed that. Now he will surely come! Unless—” He swept up his hands, filled with pale light, and turned sharply toward Cort. Keri leaped to her feet and put he...
He swept them up, and farther up, until Timou was dizzy with height, and finally up to the highest gallery of the tallest tower of all. The gallery ran all around the tower, its slim marble balustrade seeming a fragile protection against the fall that lay beyond. The air this high seemed pure as ...
It served as a waystation for nearly all the traffic flowing from south to north or back again, and it linked the river traffic with the first of the great roads that led out into the great plains of southern Casmantium. So it was an important town, and likely to grow more important still if the ...